


4 times the Torchwood team found out Jack's real name (and one time they didn't)

by marginaliana



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Humor, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-20
Updated: 2008-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does what it says on the label.</p>
            </blockquote>





	4 times the Torchwood team found out Jack's real name (and one time they didn't)

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by adina.

1.

The ship hovered only a few feet from the ground and settled slowly on a cushion of air. Tosh looked at her wrist and grinned; the first field test of any new tool was always exciting, and she wanted to know if the translation device would work on Päronskafts. Jack seemed to think it would, and he'd taken to whispering weird phrases into Ianto's ear, and then laughing when Ianto ostentatiously wiped down the side of his face.

They quickly pulled the camouflage tarp over the ship to hide it from overhead eyes. Luckily, the Päronskafts had made contact before their ship hit the atmosphere, promising peaceful intentions. They were looking for someone on Earth, apparently, though they hadn't said who. Tosh hoped she would get to find out, but she thought it was unlikely. Aliens were always cryptic.

The hatch in the side of the ship slowly hissed open and the Päronskaft leader slowly came down the ramp. His feathers were limp in the summer's heat and humidity, but his croak carried loudly through the clearing. Tosh looked at the display of the device.

"Greetings, Children of Sol," scrolled across it, and she let out a quiet whooping noise. Everyone turned to look, and Tosh gave them all a sheepish smile before holding up her wrist.

"It works," she said. Jack gave an approving smile and a quick thumbs up before turning to croak back at the Päronskaft.

"Welcome to Earth," read the screen. "My name is—"

Before Jack could finish, three more Päronskafts came out of the craft and began squawking excitedly. The one at the rear pointed a wingtip at Jack and hopped up and down, its noise drowning out the rest of Jack's words. Tosh poked the translation device, not knowing now which of the Päronskaft's words were being displayed, and thought about plans for modifying it to allow for multiple speakers.

"We know you," said the screen. "We have come looking for you. Truly, this is a fortuitous occasion ordained by the great one!" Frighteningly, Tosh had been at Torchwood long enough that she could make an educated guess as to which series of squawks meant "the great one."

"We have brought the straw," read the screen, scrolling more quickly now, "the straw which you must for us spin into strands of aureum." Out of the corner of her eye, Tosh could see Jack take a big step backwards. The screeching continued as the second of the Päronskafts reached into the basket it carried and pulled out an egg, which must have been at least a foot across. "We have even brought our first child as payment."

Tosh's mouth fell open, and her eyes went to Jack, who was holding up his hands, palms out, and saying "whoa, whoa, whoa!" in English. He squawked something back at them, and Tosh looked down again. "Sorry," read the screen, "but I got out of that business a long time ago."

Tosh snorted. Owen flicked his eyes away from Jack's wild gestures just for a second.

"What?" he said suspiciously.

"It's just," said Tosh. "I knew his name wasn't really Jack Harkness. But seriously…"

"Tosh, button it!" said Jack. "Names have power."

"But, Jack!" said Tosh.

"Look, I didn't pick it, okay?" He gave her a despairing glance. "Why do you think I chose a nice, normal name like Jack Harkness?" Tosh put a hand over her mouth and dissolved into helpless laughter.

 

2.

They huddled together on the sofa for a long time after watching Tosh's goodbye message, Jack in the middle with his arms around them both. Ianto had made hot chocolate, and he watched Gwen turn her mug around in her hands long after she'd finished it.

"Jack," she said finally. "There's just one thing I've been wondering." She looked at him sideways as if asking for permission. "Gray, your brother…"

Ianto could feel Jack's muscles tense where their sides were pressed together.

"Why the name Gray?" Gwen continued. "I figured you'd both have had futuristic names, like Snarzfargel or Grumphion or something."

Jack's whole body relaxed, and Ianto took a moment to reflect on how monumentally unfair it was that Gwen got away with asking the really insensitive questions.

"_That's_ what you've been wondering?" asked Jack, then waved a hand at the beginnings of Gwen's apologies. "No, no, it's fine. My air of mystery is, at this point," he admitted, "possibly overrated." Jack shrugged, and Ianto found himself leaning in eagerly.

"Old Earth retro was big in the days when I was a kid," said Jack, in what Ianto privately thought of as his 'long ago in a galaxy far, far away' voice. "You know, dressing up in period costume, following old traditions and superstitions. In particular, when Gray and I were born there was a convention of naming your children after the first thing the mother saw after giving birth. One of those old Earth things that of course got garbled over the centuries. Both of us got weird names that way. Gray was a bit premature, so instead of being born at home our mother was in the hospital for it. Hospital ceiling was gray, hence the name. The language there was English… ish. Enough that gray still means gray, anyway."

"And you, Jack?" asked Ianto, daringly. He couldn't help smirking a bit. "You were born at home, I'm assuming, so… Magenta? Puce? Beige?"

Jack got a sour look on his face as Gwen began to giggle.

"I didn't get off that easy," he said. "Oh, no. Can you even begin to imagine what it's like to go through the first fifteen years of your life being called 'Mating Dance of the Three-Crested Elipigs'?"

 

3.

Wrapped up in the paperwork that Ianto had insisted he finish (on pain of no kisses, which was simply unthinkable), Jack didn't notice the commotion out in the Hub until Gwen screamed. In a flash, he was on his feet and rushing out of his office, only to come face to face with a familiar rhinoceros-like snout. The Judoon's gun was poked into his face a moment later, and Jack held up his hands in surrender.

"Careful! No sudden moves!" he shouted to the team, who appeared to be crowded into a corner by three more Judoon. He lowered his voice to talk to the one in front of him. "Tell me who you're looking for, who sent you, and we can cooperate." He had a sinking feeling he knew the answers to those questions already.

The Judoon gave him a look, then snorted.

"The fugitive is rogue Time Agent 43584875, otherwise known as Spartacus. You will deliver him to us."

Shit, Jack thought. They'd caught him. He'd have to turn himself in and hope that he could escape eventually. If he didn't, they'd tear the whole base apart looking for him. Either that, or take the whole team for questioning.

"All right," Jack said. "You can let them go. I'm him." The Judoon raised an eyebrow but lowered its gun slightly. "Did you hear that?" Jack shouted across the base at the other three Judoon. "I surrender. I'm Spartacus."

There was a pause, then Ianto's voice rang out from the corner. "No, I'm Spartacus."

"What?" said Jack. "Ianto, shut up!"

"No," came Gwen's voice. "_I'm_ Spartacus!"

They were trying to confuse the Judoon, Jack realized, and his heart swelled with pride a little bit. "Seriously, guys," he shouted, "stand down! I know what I'm doing. I'm Spartacus, okay?"

"No," said Owen, sounding bored. "I'm Spartacus." A hysterical laugh started to bubble up in Jack's throat as the Judoon in front of him raised its gun again.

Thankfully, that was when Tosh appeared from the archives and the heads of all four Judoon suddenly exploded.

 

4.

Eight people had fallen through the Rift that morning, all landing in the exact same spot in the Hub, and Owen had completely lost his ability to be surprised. When number nine turned out to be Jack's third cousin, all he could muster up the energy to do was roll his eyes.

"John!" said the tall man, wrapping Jack into a hug.

"You two are cousins?" said Owen. "Wait, this is bloody Torchwood. Of course you are." Then the larger significance of the greeting caught his attention.

"John?" he said, raising an eyebrow. Tosh paused, bent over the scanner, and even Ianto hesitated in the doorway with the tray of coffee mugs.

"Oh, yes," said the tall man, swishing the silver robes around his hips. "Can't you see the resemblance?" He grinned, and suddenly Owen _could_ see it. It was all in the teeth, somehow. "And his name's my name, too. First born. Tradition and all that." He let go of Jack, who sputtered for a moment and gave Owen a warning look.

"Actually, I go by Jack Harkness now," he said in what Owen recognized as his 'damage control' voice. But the tall man didn't appear to be listening.

"John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, at your service," he said, giving a little bow. He shook Tosh's hand and Gwen's enthusiastically, then Owen's slightly less so.

"A pleasure," said Ianto. Jack frowned at him and opened his mouth, then shut it again and shrugged.

"But that's a German name," said Gwen.

"What," said Jack, "you thought the stars were going to be colonized by the British?"

Owen clenched his teeth and realized he was giving himself a headache. He was familiar with the sensation after several years of working with Jack.

"Funny that you didn't know my name," said John meditatively. "At home everyone's always shouting it at me."

 

5.

Jack hovered in the doorway of his office and listened to his team gossiping about him. It was a good feeling, given that only a few hours earlier he'd honestly thought he might be stuck in 1941, taking the slow road until he could see them again.

"And then they were kissing," said Tosh, "right there in front of all of the soldiers!"

"The man has no shame," said Owen.

"No, I think it was just…" Tosh paused, and though Jack's line of sight didn't allow him to see it, he could tell she was steepling her fingers together in the way that meant she was thinking. "Jack doesn't know how to do emotion without sex, I don't think."

None of them seemed to notice Ianto's tiny intake of breath besides Jack, and he filed the moment away for future examination even as he cringed at how true Tosh's comment was. Telling people you cared about them was hard; leering at them was just so much easier.

"He felt something for the man," Tosh continued, "but it wasn't like that, necessarily. It was more like… the love of a brother."

"I don't know about you, but I don't generally make out with _my_ brothers," said Owen. The rest of the team ignored him.

"Are you suggesting they're related somehow?" asked Gwen. "That would explain why Jack goes by his name. The real Captain Jack, he could be an uncle. He could be Jack's father."

"I don't think so," said Ianto. "Jack's _seen_ Back to the Future. He knows better."

As Tosh and Ianto exchanged grins at that, Jack snorted softly. Seen Back to the Future? He'd _lived_ Back to the Future. But it was probably a good thing they didn't know that. They were too close to the truth already.

He still remembered all the stories he'd been told as a child, tucked up into his bed and drifting to sleep with visions of the dashing and heroic Captain Jack in his head. He remembered the horror of losing Gray and thinking, in a fit of despair, of how his family's most famous ancestor would surely have been disappointed in him. He remembered saying goodbye to his mother before boarding the Time Agency recruitment ship, the way she had straightened his collar and tidied his hair. "You wear your name well, Jack Harkness," she'd said. "He would be proud of you. I know I am."

"And then we came back," said Tosh, bringing Jack back to the present.

"I'm glad you made it back safely," said Ianto quietly. "I wasn't trying—" Jack's angle of sight lets him see Tosh putting a hand onto Ianto's arm.

"I know," she said. "Thanks."

"So, James Harper, you said?" asked Owen gruffly. "You think _that's_ his real name?"

"Nah," said Tosh. "It was pretty obvious he was making it up on the spot. I don't think we're any closer to knowing now than we were before."

Jack bit his lip. He hadn't realized they spent quite so much time speculating.

"Except for one thing," said Gwen. "We know it's definitely _not_ Jack Harkness. We suspected before, but this is proof."

"That's true," said Tosh. The rest of the team nodded, and Jack had to duck back into his office and stick his fist in his mouth to stifle the laughter.


End file.
